Princess Margaret of Connaught

Early life

Margaret was born on 15 January 1882 at Bagshot Park and baptised in the Private Chapel of Windsor Castle on 11 March by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Her godparents were Queen Victoria (her paternal grandmother); the German Emperor (her maternal great-granduncle, who was represented by the German Ambassador, Count Münster); the German Crown Princess (her paternal aunt, who was represented by her sister, Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein); Prince and Princess Friedrich Karl of Prussia (her maternal grandparents, for whom her paternal uncle the Duke of Edinburgh and aunt Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom stood proxy); the Duchess of Cambridge (her paternal great-grandaunt, who was represented by her grandniece Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll); the Prince of Wales (her paternal uncle) and Prince Charles of Prussia (her great-grandfather, for whom her paternal uncle Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany stood proxy). She was known as "Daisy" to her family, a nickname later passed down to her granddaughter Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.

Margaret grew up as a member of the British royal family, taking part in family holidays and weddings. She was a bridesmaid along with her sister at the wedding of their paternal cousins the Duke and Duchess of York on 6 July 1893. Margaret was confirmed in March 1898, also in the Private Chapel of Windsor Castle.

Marriage

When Margaret was 23 and her younger sister Princess Patricia of Connaught was 18, both girls were among the most beautiful and eligible princesses in Europe. Their uncle, Edward VII, wanted his nieces to marry a European king or crown prince. In January 1905, the Duke and Duchess of Connaught visited Portugal, where they were received by King Carlos and his wife, Amélie of Orléans, whose sons, Luís Filipe, Duke of Braganza, and Prince Manuel, entertained the young British princesses. The Portuguese expected one of the Connaught princesses would become the future Queen of Portugal.

The Connaughts continued their trip to Egypt and Sudan. In Cairo, they met Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden, the future Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden, grandson of the Swedish King Oscar II. Originally, Margaret's sister Patricia had been considered a suitable match for Gustaf Adolf; without his knowledge, a meeting was arranged with the two sisters. Gustaf Adolf and Margaret fell in love at first sight; he proposed at a dinner held by Lord Cromer at the British Consulate in Egypt and was accepted. Margaret's parents were very happy with the match.

Gustaf Adolf and Margaret married on 15 June 1905 in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. Margaret's bridesmaids were her sister Princess Patricia of Connaught, cousins Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, and first cousin once removed Princess Mary of Wales. The couple spent their honeymoon at Adare Manor in County Limerick, Ireland, and arrived in Sweden on 8 July 1905.

One of Margaret's wedding presents was the Connaught tiara, which remains in the Swedish royal jewellery collection today. Newspaper articles reporting on the valuation of her mother's estate for Probate in 1917 note that Margaret received a £25,000 marriage settlement from her parents.

The couple had five children:

Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten, who predeceased his father

Sigvard Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg

Ingrid, Queen of Denmark

Crown Princess

The marriage between Margaret and Gustaf Adolf is described as a happy love match. Gustaf Adolf felt great pressure from the "Prussian" military discipline with which he had been raised by his mother, and he was greatly affected by and attracted to Margaret's differing English customs. The visiting Infanta Eulalia of Spain wrote that the Crown Princess gave the Swedish court "just a touch of the elegance of the Court of St James's" and of how much Margaret loved her life in Sweden.

After her arrival in Sweden, Margaret, who in Sweden was called "Margareta", received lessons in the Swedish language, and asked to be educated in Swedish history and social welfare. After two years, she spoke good Swedish. She was also eager to find out more about Sweden, and on many occasions went on incognito trips. During her first years in Sweden, Margaret behaved with great seriousness and was therefore regarded as stiff, but the view of her changed because of her great interest in sports, where she showed a more relaxed and natural manner. Margaret took a great interest in many forms of sports; she used the winters for skiing, ice skating and playing bandy, and played tennis and golf during the summers. She also corresponded with various relatives.

Margaret was also interested in art, and was an admirer of the works of Claude Monet. She photographed, painted, and took a great interest in gardening. She and her spouse received Sofiero Palace as a wedding gift, and they spent their summers there and made a great effort creating gardens in an English style on the estate; her children participated in their improvement. In 1915, Margaret as Kronprinsessan Margareta published the book Vår trädgård på Sofiero ("Our Garden at Sofiero") and two years later also Från blomstergården ("From the Flower Garden") illustrated with her own drawings and photographs, which were sold for the benefit of household schools with childcare.

During World War I, Margaret created a sewing society in Sweden to support the Red Cross. The society was called Kronprinsessans Centralförråd för landstormsmäns beklädnad och utrustning ("The Crown Princess's central storage for clothing and equipment of the home guard"), which was to equip the Swedish armed forces with suitable underwear. When paraffin supplies ran low she organized a candle collection, and in November 1917 she instituted a scheme to train girls to work on the land. She also acted as intermediary for relatives separated by the war. With her help, private letters and requests to trace men missing in action were passed on. She was also active in her work on behalf of prisoners. She aided prisoners of war in camps around Europe, especially British nationals. Margaret's efforts during the war were pro-British, in contrast to her mother-in-law's strictly pro-German attitude. In 1917, Margaret organized Margaretainsamlingen för de fattiga ("The Margaret fundraiser for the poor"). At the end of the war, when the final steps towards full democracy were taken in Sweden, Margaret's positive attitude to reform influenced her husband the Crown Prince. Unlike the attitude of her reform-hostile in-laws, King Gustaf and Queen Victoria, this is believed to have eased political tensions and preserved the Swedish monarchy.

Death

At 2:00 am on Saturday, 1 May 1920, her father's 70th birthday, Margaret died suddenly in Stockholm of "blood poisoning" (sepsis). Sometime before this she had suffered from measles, which aggravated her ear, and she underwent surgery to remove a mastoid. Since the previous Sunday, she had been suffering from pain in her face from something below her eye, and doctors decided to perform another procedure. On Thursday, symptoms of erysipelas appeared under her right ear. She fell gravely ill on Friday night when symptoms of sepsis became evident, and she died within hours. At the time, she was eight months pregnant with her sixth child. In announcing her death during traditional International Workers' Day celebrations, Swedish Prime Minister Hjalmar Branting said: "the ray of sunshine at Stockholm Palace has gone out" (Solstrålen på Stockholms slott har slocknat).

In Britain, there had been reports that Margaret was unhappy in Sweden and there were dubious rumours that her death had been a suicide.

Margaret was buried according to her specific and detailed wishes, written in 1914. She asked to be buried in her wedding dress and her veil, with a crucifix in her hands, in a simple coffin made from English oak and covered in British and Swedish flags. She requested that there should be no lying-in-state after her death.

Legacy

In 2021, an exhibition Daisy. Crown Princess Margareta, 1882–1920 opened at the Royal Palace in Stockholm.

The late British rose breeder David C. H. Austin released Rosa 'Crown Princess Margareta' in 2000. Princess Margaret was an accomplished landscape gardener and had a prominent role in the design and care of the gardens at Sofiero Castle.

Honours and arms

Honours

Member, Second Class, of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert (VA)

Companion of the Imperial Order of the Crown of India (CI)

25 July 1905: Lady of Justice of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (DStJ)

Arms

Upon her marriage in 1905, Princess Margaret adopted the arms of a Princess of Sweden and Duchess of Scania, with an inescutcheon of her previous arms: the arms of the United Kingdom, with an inescutcheon of Saxony, the whole differenced by a label argent of five points, the first and fifth bearing fleurs-de-lys azure, the second and fourth shamrocks vert, and the central point a cross gules. The inescutcheon of Saxony was removed by King George V in 1917.